First step in rewilding

imo

take it barefoot

yours?

What do you mean by imo? I see people writing that but I haven’t understood what it means.

I see, so far, three steps needed in order to create the first step, : Unfrenzy, feel (empathize), support rewilding.

Next!?

imo = in my opinion. What do you mean by unfrenzy?

Sleep with the window open. ;D

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Hm. My first step was dropping out of high school.

I don’t know. I finsished high school. I even finished college (though I didn’t consider it college). So I guess from here it’s just books and practice and stuff like that.

haha our sliding glass door remains open.

:smiley: Hey dude I haven’t forgot about you! I just need more time feeling around for how to put it into writen words. Do you mind waiting?

=P sure, anything free is worth saving up for

practicing presence… as in find a way of really being here on earth and in our bodies… sometimes that means going barefoot, or eating wild food or spending time in the wilderness etc… and from that place of presence and really feeling (the core of wildness in so many senses) we can take action and find other ways of re-integrating our innate wildness.

Turn off your electricity.

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stop worrying.

Don’t read any more books about rewilding, you probably read more than you need to already.
Try to spend as much time in natural environments as you can.
Practice outdoor skills and try to pick up as many new ones as you can.
Practice being kind to the people around you…all of them.
Practice putting yourself in other peoples shoes.
Practice taking responsibility for your own shit…all of it.
Don’t play video games.
Quit drinking alcohol and doing dope.
Spend as much time as you can in places where you are the only one who looks like you.

Try staying off the internet for an entire month &
Try not to say or write the word “fuck” for an entire month.

No matter how good you are at using e-prime language if you swear all the time and advocate violence and generally promote divisiveness then any new culture you create will be doomed.

All these buzz words and jargon like “rewild” and “e-prime” and “civ” are a form of branding. Just like Tommy H. or whatever. You show who you are by using these buzz words. If you can talk the talk you may not even ever have to walk the walk.
The way I see it what goes on here is putting the cart before the horse for the most part. You are trying to develop a culture that the natural world will eventually have to fit into (maybe). Won’t work. It’s the same old story just from a different angle. I know many of you will not get what I’m talking about and probably think I’m just some crank that’s raining on your parade.

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??? I don’t know if I’ve ever written Rewild. There. It is done.

Love yourself >&> Love life. Learn and understand the basic facts about the civilization. Serve your landbase with your insight, knoweldge and expression [hands, voice paint, pen > whatever]. Rewild.

[quote=“heyvictor, post:13, topic:313”]Don’t read any more books about rewilding, you probably read more than you need to already.
Try to spend as much time in natural environments as you can.
Practice outdoor skills and try to pick up as many new ones as you can.
Practice being kind to the people around you…all of them.
Practice putting yourself in other peoples shoes.
Practice taking responsibility for your own shit…all of it.
Don’t play video games.
Quit drinking alcohol and doing dope.
Spend as much time as you can in places where you are the only one who looks like you.

Try staying off the internet for an entire month &
Try not to say or write the word “fuck” for an entire month.

No matter how good you are at using e-prime language if you swear all the time and advocate violence and generally promote divisiveness then any new culture you create will be doomed.

All these buzz words and jargon like “rewild” and “e-prime” and “civ” are a form of branding. Just like Tommy H. or whatever. You show who you are by using these buzz words. If you can talk the talk you may not even ever have to walk the walk.
The way I see it what goes on here is putting the cart before the horse for the most part. You are trying to develop a culture that the natural world will eventually have to fit into (maybe). Won’t work. It’s the same old story just from a different angle. I know many of you will not get what I’m talking about and probably think I’m just some crank that’s raining on your parade.[/quote]

It seems like the sum of your advice comes down to “challenge yourself”. I like a lot of what you said. But not all of it.

Don't read any more books about rewilding, you probably read more than you need to already.

I would say gather every book you can. You don’t have to read them all. But definitely read – or try to find some way to drink in information about the skills that we have lost by growing up in civilization. You will always need to learn more, and your learning curve will vary as you progress. So maybe a book by one author may not mean anything to you at first but it could have a great impact on you later. Gather a variety of voices in order to get varied perspectives on things. And try to find information that applies as specifically to your bioregion as possible.

Practice outdoor skills and try to pick up as many new ones as you can.

Absolutely. You may have the potential to learn a lot about a plant or animal or process from a book. But until you interact with it, you can’t truly know it. Take the perspectives of others that you glean from books, seminar, videos, talking to people and then act on them in order to build your own perspective.

I felt like I didn’t know jack about flintknapping from the books I had read, but when I actually held a piece of Burlington chert in my had for the first time, I found all the things I had read beginning to make sense. Now that I have tried chipping some stone, everything else I read about it makes even more sense. So I want to build on that cycle and keep it spiraling upward.

Practice being kind to the people around you....all of them. Practice putting yourself in other peoples shoes.

…

Practice taking responsibility for your own shit…all of it.
Try not to say or write the word “fuck” for an entire month.

I like the irony of how you offer the advice of not saying/writing “fuck” right after you wrote “shit” – moreover about taking responsibility for your own shit. If you meant that irony as a point of humor, then I applaud you.

I would add to the first two items as well and say try acting kindly to and putting yourself in the shoes of people that you especially don’t like. Delve into their perspective. You may not have the constitution to stay there very long, but you may gain something from the experience that can improve your relationship with someone you hate. I picked up on this invisible skill from the christian fundamentalists that I eventually grew to hate, so I have my own ironies to deal with, too. :slight_smile:

Don't play video games. Quit drinking alcohol and doing dope.

I might sum that up as “don’t let distractions creep in.” If Mike and Jason can turn The 5th World into viable video game that works as a learning too, then I would advise people to play it. I also highly recommend the tabletop version they have already produced. It works as a great way to challenge your mind and try thinking about a world without the civilized framework we grew up with. But whatever tool you use, don’t get lost in the tool. Don’t let the tool own you. Because then you become a tool.

Spend as much time as you can in places where you are the only one who looks like you.

All these buzz words and jargon like “rewild” and “e-prime” and “civ” are a form of branding. Just like Tommy H. or whatever. You show who you are by using these buzz words.

It sounds, heyvictor, that you like making a brand of oneself by standing out from the crowd.

We use jargon as a shortcut for what we hold in common. I disagree that “e-prime” counts as jargon unless you think “flintknaping”, “brain tanning”, “tribal community living” and other skills fit the jargon branding category as well.

“Civ,” I grant you, works as a branding term to make a distinction between civilized ways and non-civilized ways. I get tired of typing the full word “civilization” sometimes, and I abbreviate. But if you look back through my posts, you will find me including myself in the brand of “civ” as often as you find me contrasting myself with it.

What do I show by using these buzz words? That I have started on a journey from “civ” to “rewild”. And that is exactly where I want to be.

As for “rewild” counting as a jargon buzzword within the rewilding community – would you say the same of using the term “primitive skills” on a forum dedicated to primitive skills?

The way I see it what goes on here is putting the cart before the horse for the most part. You are trying to develop a culture that the natural world will eventually have to fit into (maybe). Won't work. It's the same old story just from a different angle. I know many of you will not get what I'm talking about and probably think I'm just some crank that's raining on your parade.

Before I would ever try to hook a cart to a horse, I would try to learn how to do it. I would maybe read a book about it. I would try to talk to others about how they do it. I could just jump in and try to do the hitching myself. I might learn a lot from my errors. But if I had the resources of getting and giving information with a community of people interested in hooking carts to horses, I would definitely make use of that resource.

I get what you mean, heyvictor. I sense that you don’t value the dialogues that take place here and that you look down on the users because they haven’t done as much as your and didn’t come to the place of doing things the same way you did. If you don’t see the value in trying to prepare for a storm before it ever gets here, that’s your choice. But don’t belittle me for trying to learn how to board up my windows as I see a hurricane approaching.

new people need new words. if the current vocabulary was enough, they wouldn’t be invented. people may simply not need them, or feel inferior for not thinking of them first, but only an asshole needs his way to be the way of others.

Ah, but I don’t read more than I want to. I want to read so much more.

Try to spend as much time in natural environments as you can.
Of course, since I live in an urban environment, I'd have to drive out several miles to even find a "natural" environment. Which requires a car, fuel for it, and therefore greater participation in the culture I'm trying to escape in the first place.
Practice being kind to the people around you....all of them.
Even ones that choose to victimize me? No thanks.
Practice putting yourself in other peoples shoes.
I'm trying to learn to get by without shoes
Don't play video games. Quit drinking alcohol and doing dope.
Those are all potentially addictive things, but they can all also be used responsibly. They are vices. I love my vices. I even love other people's vices. Of course, the more time I spend in actual meaningful activity, the less I engage in my vices, but it didn't come from some purity kick. It came because those activities are more rewarding than the vices are. I think you may be putting the cart before the horse here.
Spend as much time as you can in places where you are the only one who looks like you.
I used to do this all the time, but not in the way you mean it. I would make sure I looked different than the other white kids around me. You know, more punk. I wear costumes all the time, and my wife makes my wardrobe so it's unique. I know it's not what you meant, but guess what? I've done that too and the consequences were pretty similar. Ostricization, name calling, lack of respect or opportunity to participate. You need to be accepted into a group, and groups look for similar qualities in the people they accept.
Try staying off the internet for an entire month &
No books and no internet. And since I don't know anyone local who can serve as a mentor, I guess I should try to rewild with no support at all. Sure, I'll die or go limping back to civ within 2 weeks, but it's worth it to stay pure, right?
Try not to say or write the word "fuck" for an entire month.

I’m sorry heyvic, but fuck your list. those aren’t the first steps to rewilding. Those are the steps for people ready to leave civ. It’s like saying the first step to being a butterfly is to crawl out of your coccoon. It’s a step, but the first step is to be a voracious caterpillar.

I liked that.

[quote=“Fenriswolfr, post:18, topic:313”][quote author=Andrew Jensen link=topic=326.msg4872#msg4872 date=1190994345]
those aren’t the first steps to rewilding. Those are the steps for people ready to leave civ. It’s like saying the first step to being a butterfly is to crawl out of your coccoon. It’s a step, but the first step is to be a voracious caterpillar.
[/quote]

I liked that.[/quote]
yeah, well put.

I stopped hating everyone. That was my first step. I changed my mind about humanity.

I’ve seen people come into this forum (and others) with an “I’m more re-wilded than you” attitude, and it makes me think: how? You’re still working with the same civilized attitude of “my shit’s better than your shit”, so how, precisely are these self-proclaimed über-wilders further down the path of rewilding? Because they can flint-knap a blade in ten minutes? Because they can start a friction fire in seconds? Because they can live outdoors by themselves for a whole winter? The only aboriginal people that live like that are outcasts - people without a tribe. I don’t want that. I’ve seen people do that, and frankly it’s not that impressive. Rewilding is more than learning m@d paleo-skillz. It’s also looking at the world through your own eyes, instead of through the lens of civilization. It’s also removing the intangible obstacles that make you hate what you are. It’s also dumping the baggage of promised salvation and the pedestal-placing of surviving aboriginal cultures.

You want to show me how much more l337 of a primitive you are? Show me how you aren’t looking down your nose at the rest of “the civs”. Show me how you’re helping other people understand themselves in a way that excludes the yoke of civilized thinking. Show me. Then you won’t have to come in here with your attitude and your airs of superiority and enlightenment. You’ll show me that you know better.

~ SW